Istanbul ranked as 15th most congested city in world

ISTANBUL

Istanbul has ranked 15th among the cities with the most traffic in the world, according to a new report by transportation analytics firm INRIX. Among European countries, on the other hand, Istanbul ranked fourth in terms of worst traffic.

According to INRIX’s Global Traffic Scorecard, the average commuter in Istanbul spent 59 hours a year in traffic jams in 2017.

The cities on the list were ranked by the time the average commuter spent in congestion at the busiest time of the day.

INRIX examined congestion in 1,360 cities in 38 countries on five continents and calculated the percentage of time drivers spent in congestion at different times of the day and week. The analysts used more than 300 million different sources to carry out the study.

U.S. cities dominated the world’s top 10 most-traffic-congested urban areas, with Los Angeles leading in mind-numbing and costly gridlock, according to the report.

Moscow had the worst traffic jams of any capital city in Europe with peak congestion costing motorists 91 hours in 2017, the report said.

For Europe, Moscow was followed by London and Paris, with 74 hours and 69 hours respectively regarding the time spent in congestion.

The situation is much better in some of the continent’s smaller capital cities.

Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, is a good example. Its metropolitan area had a population of around 500,000 people and total delays due to peak congestion in 2017 amounted to 21 hours.